4.11.2010

Spin City

When we did our Swingtown series about Daybreak's unusual playground equipment last June (here and here), I declared this climbing contraption (pictured right) to be "the biggest waste of space in the entire community." Well, apparently somebody important was listening. We were out on a walk a few months ago and noticed it had been replaced with new spinning toys of varying styles and sizes. This intriguing development practically demanded that we assemble a follow up report.

Exhibit AWe have noticed these spinning poles starting to pop up in several parks around the community. Sit or stand on the platform as a friend spins you, or use your feet to spin yourself, and soon the world around you bleeds into horizontal speed lines. Choosing to disregard her history of motion sickness for the sake of this post, Kristen nearly lost her lunch testing one out.

Exhibit BLooking rather innocent upon first glance, this angled seat starts unexpectedly rotating as soon as you sit down. If you really put your weight into it you can get going really fast. Of course with your legs up in the air it's hard to stop unless you recklessly throw your feet down and leap off in a dizzy blur of flying wood chips. I was forced to employ this method when Eddie wandered over to get a closer look at what Daddy was doing and I nearly severed him in half with my legs.

Exhibit CThis spinning whatchamacallit appears to be a close relative of last year's infamous leg swinging thingamajig. It took a little more effort to get it going than Exhibit B, at least for someone of my size. As I was shifting my weight back and forth I was reminded of the Rock-O-Planes at Lagoon. No, that's not a good thing.

To help illustrate my descriptions, I have once again assembled a video. And this time Kristen and Eddie have gotten in on the action as well.

I was a little nauseated. Surprisingly, the one where you sit on the platform and spin the pole was the worst one for me. I think maybe it's because it was a steady twirl. It took me a full minute to get to where I could stand up once I stopped spinning.